REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA
Americans United for Change Offers Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Assistance with Planned Contract with America Redux
Washington D.C. – Following revelations this week that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been tasked by the current House Republican leadership “to organize an effort over the next four or five months to develop a [new] compact or contract [with America]” -- akin to the famous Contract with America Republicans campaigned on in 1994 -- Americans United for Change, the group behind the national Bush Legacy Tour, offered to lend the former Speaker a hand with the first draft:
REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA
As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to fully restore the same failed policies that we helped enable under President George W. Bush – a golden era of conservative governance that saw a tragically inept response to Hurricane Katrina, a needless and badly mismanaged war in Iraq, the handing over of the country’s energy and environmental policies over to the big oil and gas companies, two vetoes of a basic expansion of the children’s health care program, tax cuts for the extremely rich that saw the income gap between working Americans and the wealthiest few widen like never before, skyrocketing health care costs bankrupt more Americans than ever before, and, of course, the complete and utter disregard for the rampant, reckless behavior on Wall Street that led to the worst economic and financial disaster since the Great Depression, costing millions of Americans their jobs, retirement and health care.
That is why - in this new Obama era of responsible governance, accountability, and economic recovery - we offer instead a detailed agenda for sustained national economic and financial insecurity, a written commitment with lots and lots of fine print.
This year's election offers the chance - after but one year of Democratic control that reduced taxes for 95 percent of American families and helped put over 2 million Americans back to work - to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works: by threatening to shut it down altogether every time the bottom line of our largest donors in the oil, insurance, banking industry are threatened in any way. That historic change would be the end of government that is too concerned about the welfare of average working Americans and not enough on Corporate welfare.
Like George W. Bush, our proudest Republican president, we intend to make things right again for “the haves and the have-mores.”
On the first day of the 112th Congress, the Republican minority will immediately propose the following major reforms,
FIRST AND FOREMOST, repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and eradicate all its new reforms, ESPECIALLY the Barring insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions and gender, the Prohibiting insurance companies from rescinding coverage when people get sick, the Ending of lifetime and annual caps on coverage, the Extension of parents’ coverage to young adults until age 26 and, the Filling of the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap known as the ‘donut hole’ for our nation’s seniors.
SECOND, provide massive subsidies and expand offshore tax havens for Corporate America and provide massive tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans and pray that – this time – it solves every single economic problem the nation faces.
THIRD, instate a strict “No Corporate accountability” policy, encouraging Wall Street bankers to go back and engage in all the same risky and reckless behavior with other peoples’ money that collapsed the financial system and providing the health insurance, pharmaceutical, and petroleum industries free reign to gouge American consumers at every opportunity.
FOURTH, immediately pass the budget proposal authored by US. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin that would dismantle Social Security with a risky privatization scheme and replace Medicare with a voucher program not worth the paper it’s printed on.
FIFTH, repeal the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 and roll back more than $40 billion in Pell Grants helping make college affordable for millions of Americans.
SIXTH, repeal the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 and restore the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour.
SEVENTH, pick a yet-to-be-determined social wedge issue and run with it for the next two years.
EIGHTH, chisel the face of George W. Bush into Mount Rushmore.